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Sochi protests

Cossacks stop Pussy Riot show

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoMORRY GASH | ASSOCIATED PRESSA Cossack from a volunteer citizen patrol in Sochi, Russia, attacks members of the punk group Pussy Riot as they prepare a performance not far from the main Olympic venue.

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SOCHI, Russia — Members of the performance-art group Pussy Riot were attacked on a public plaza
yesterday by Cossacks brandishing whips and discharging pepper spray, a day after police detained
the group for nearly four hours without charges.

An Associated Press video showed the Cossacks advancing on the five women and one man with
whips, knocking them down and striking them. The performers had just been shown gathering at an
outdoor plaza in Sochi, about 20 miles from the Olympic Park, taking off coats, putting on ski
masks and preparing to perform when the Cossacks attacked.

The Cossacks roughly pulled off the masks and flicked their whips at the group. When the group
escaped, they tweeted what had happened, providing details and photos. They had been preparing to
make a video of a new protest song,
Putin will teach you how to love your Motherland, when the Cossacks appeared and set upon
them.

Pussy Riot has a storied and controversial history in Russia. Two members, Nadezhda
Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, were arrested after they took part in a protest in February
2012. They, along with other members of the group, mounted the altar of Moscow’s main Orthodox
cathedral and sang a protest song criticizing President Vladimir Putin and his close ties to the
Russian Orthodox Church. Both women served nearly two years in prison before their release in
December.

Alyokhina tweeted a photo yesterday of a young man who had joined the five women for the
performance — usually they perform as a feminist collective. He had a bloodied face, an injury that
Alyokhina said was suffered in the attack.

Tolokonnikova, who was knocked to the ground and hit with a whip, tweeted that her husband,
Pyotr Verzilov, had been taken to the hospital, unable to see because of the pepper spray.

The Cossacks, descended from czarist-era horsemen who patrolled the borders of the Russian
empire, are remembered historically for leading pogroms against Jews. Today, they are socially
conservative and ardent supporters of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Recently, they have been revived as a sort of volunteer citizen patrol, and about 800 of them
have supplemented the police providing security for the Winter Games here.

Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina, freed from prison as part of an amnesty announced by Putin, have
been pursuing prison reform since their release.